Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Civilization is dead, long live History!

In case any of you missed Tuesday's announcement by Minister James Moore, you might want to type "Canadian Museum of Civilization" and "Musée canadien des civilisations" in GoogleNews.

For now, I will allow elder blogsman Christopher Moore's optimism to wash over me. Perhaps some good can come out of this after all. It's a shame, though, that Canada Hall is being scrapped altogether. The immersive environments -- from the Basque ship and whaling station, to the mid-eighteenth century "New France" town gate and square, the Louisbourg inn, the farmhouse, workshops and hospital interiors -- were nothing short of magical. The post 1760 ones were not bad either, I guess. Museum staff have their work cut out for them.